5.24.2011

Here's an absolutely lovely video about a beekeeper-artist-visionary in Hong Kong named Michael Leung. I love what he says about moving slowly, calmly, in a Zenlike way when working with the bees, and I love his steadfast attitude toward the work he's doing to promote all sorts of important connections that, for many, have been lost but now are found.

4.12.2011

Interesting goings-on at the compost heap the other day, with the honeybees frenetically gathering coffee grounds in their pollen baskets. Not sure what was up with that, but the proof is posted below for all to see.Given the dearth of pollen sources so early in the season up in the Northern Catskills, perhaps the bees were simply "taking what they could get" by gleaning the coffee from our discarded Melitta filters. I wonder what, if any, merit the grounds have from a nutritional perspective.

Or perhaps these bees (and, one can only hope, bees across the world) are hyping themselves up for a long overdue battle with homo sapiens for world dominance. If so, I'm rooting for the bees and will gladly serve as barista to the revolution.

What interesting or unexpected things have you observed honeybees gathering or doing of late?

2.02.2011

Wren's folks recently returned from a trip to the Middle East. They're always very generous about seeking out honey to bring home to us, and once again they came through on this trip.Check out the swank set-up this gentleman from Amman has created for marketing his honey. I love those hexagonal display shelves. We've been enjoying the jar of honey pictured below with our morning yogurt—absolutely divine!(Thanks to Fred Sanders for allowing me to share his photos here.)

1.25.2011

A friend recently asked me for a copy of this poem I wrote back in 1999, while at a writer's colony in Taos, New Mexico.

I'm glad she did, for I'd forgotten about it and was glad to be reunited with the strong pleasure I feel when I remember to take the time to commune with the worms. Earthworms are one of the many unsung heroes of the natural world. For gardeners, they're good friends, but all of us who eat are directly enriched by the work they do.

And so I hope you'll enjoy my poem, "Reward."

REWARDYou must first be willing to kneel before the meadow.Align your ear to its uneven surface and you will hearthe wheezing earthworms below, rubbery locksmithstunneling through their monotonous dimension. Youwill hear the mild sucking of the earth entering into them,the rasping friction of soil undulating uneasily throughthem, and its loose translation into unstrung baby bracelets of aerated loam. Look around you,for you are kneeling amidst a sea of worm-castings,amidst their labor and its souvenirs. Then smell the worked-over soil their bodies revise.And in that scent, find the echo of the sound,its manifestation: the world passed throughthe earthworm’s body a key in its keyhole,music through its bell.

1.19.2011

Awhile back, I wrote this mini-essay for a literary calendar project a friend of mine was putting together.

Today, in the snowy Catskills, I happened upon it and thought it might be fun to reprise it here. At this phase of the year, the tactile pleasure of handling earthworm-y compost is a fond memory, buried under a foot or so of snow; these days, a trip to empty the compost is a vaguely life-threatening battle with deep snow and icy patches.

I miss the sight, smells, and yes, sounds of robust mid-summer soil. In that spirit, herewith, alongside my freshly unearthed meditation on compost and poetry, are some "action shots" of my beloved compost pile taken over the past couple of years.

In my compost pile at this very moment are: eggshells, a rotted zucchini, strawberry hulls, hot pink earthworms, fish bones, onion skins, hardworking ants, an old copy of The Joy of Cooking, aged cow manure (hauled in buckets from a farm pile 10 miles away where I force my girlfriend to take me every summer), deadheaded daffodils, weeds whose names I won’t bore you with, teabags, and the shredded drafts of old poems.

I love the idea of my words returning to the earth, since the inspiration for much of my writing and more and more of my living is the world of nature.Compost Happens, says a popular bumper sticker, but I think of compost the way I think of poetry: a process of thoughtful addition, disciplined editing, experimentation, and alchemy. Just the right amount of attention is required: too little, and you get a cold pile of nothing; too much, and you overwork the magic. Words squirm together on the page and life is born, but if the artistic choices aren’t right, you wind up with a stinking anaerobic sludge.

Like compost, writing should startle and surprise. My compost pile has revealed spotted salamanders, red-bellied snakes, handsome toad-elders, iridescent beetles, moles, voles, stupendously handsome red-bellied snakes, and luminescent worms so thin they’re barely there at all—each and every one of these animalitos de dios evoking a sense of gratitude and awe akin to the very best (and rarest) moments of creative pursuit. Like writing, compost is deep.

Honeybee Readzzzz

The Queen Must Die: And Other Affairs of Bees and Men, William Longgood

Robbing the Bees, Holley Bishop

Honeybee Newzzzz

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Quotes of Note

"The cynicism that you have is not your real soul."—Yoko Ono

"The country that elected George Bush — sort of — because he seemed like he’d be more fun to have a beer with than Al Gore or John Kerry is really getting its comeuppance."—Gail Collins

"How do you inherit the earth? By being awake."—Joni Mitchell

Causing the right amount of trouble is an art form.”—Judith Coche

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."—Philip K. Dick

"A meddling beekeeper is said to be the bees' worst enemy, and this may be true."—Ormond Aebi, The Art and Adventure of Beekeeping

"For too long we have been locked in an old fashioned, reductionist approach, dealing with bees as if they were mere machines created solely for our benefit, instead of highly evolved, wild creatures, with which we are privileged to work."—Phil Chandler, The Barefoot Beekeeper

"Neither among the bees nor any other animals that have a ray of our intellect, do things happen with the precision our books record. Too many circumstances remain unknown to us."—Maurice Maeterlinck

"Whatever lofty things you might accomplish today, you will do them only because you first ate something that grew out of dirt."—Barbara Kingsolver

"Healthy, happy bees don't need any additives."—Dee A. Lusby

"When the bird and the book disagree, always believe the bird."—Audubon

"There is a certain valid moment for every cloud."—Paul Strand

Music to Bee By

"For the bee, honey is the ultimate reality. It represents the fulfillment of her life mission, the triumph over her enemies, the continuity of the hive, the justification for working herself to death. Honey is to bees what money in the bank is to people—a measure of prosperity and well-being. But there is nothing abstract or symbolic about honey, as there is about money, which has no intrinsic value. There is more real wealth in a pound of honey, or a load of manure for that matter, than all the currency in the world. We often destroy the world's real wealth to create an illusion of wealth, confusing symbol and substance."—Wm. Longgood, The Queen Must Die